


salt; stars and sweetness

by protectoroffaeries



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Consent Issues, Drowning, F/M, Implied/Referenced Sex, Inspired by Mr. Brightside by the Killers, Inspired by Music, M/M, Multi, Nightmares, Please read the Author's Note, Swearing, Unreliable Narrator, death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 10:24:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10592064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/protectoroffaeries/pseuds/protectoroffaeries
Summary: It's hard to escape nightmares when they're real.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The consent issue is implied. One character feels like they pressured another into having sex. 
> 
> There are multiple mentions of drowning and death, but no one actually drowns or dies.
> 
> It's a nightmare. It's very guilt-riddled, self-loathing, and dark.
> 
> Please read carefully.

_ Water is the blackness. It surrounds him, drags him down, down, down. Alexander will never see the light again, if he ever saw it before. The water drags on his clothes, mats his hair over his eyes, and when he takes in a breath, it clogs his lungs. _

_ Dying looks like nothing, an endless suspension in the depths of space and time. Dying sounds like the ocean, the violent crash of waves as they throw themselves upon the rocks; Nature such an unforgiving mistress - she takes and she takes and she takes and Alexander can relate. Dying smells bitter and rotten, a sharpness that demands attention, that screams the end. Dying feels as easy as falling asleep, but Alexander can't trust what he feels. Are those tears or raindrops on his face? They're neither. _

_ Dying tastes like salt, it tastes dry and grating against his lips. Alexander wants to feel the caress of sweetness on his tongue one last time, so he claws for the surface and scratches his last chance before the darkness swallows him forever. _

_ Somehow he breaks the surface. Alexander coughs and coughs and coughs until the world is bright. Until the air is sweet. There are stars overhead; they appear one-by-one, by two-by-two, and then suddenly the sky is on fire with millions of them. Billions of them. They make him think of John Laurens. _

_ The water drains away, though Alexander isn't sure if he should credit the stars. Follow the stars, Alexander remembers the stories, and when he finds himself on his feet, he makes the mistake of trusting them. He is the foolish child who listens to old women's tales. Trust the stars. The light loves him no more, no less, than the dark that nearly consumed him. Why did he trust it? Why does anyone? _

_The flaming sky says, “John Laurens,” and Alexander sees him. Loves him._ _He shelters Alexander against the black abyss, a fierce protector as they grow up, as Alexander leaves the water and its evils behind. They're only children when they drunkenly say, “I do,” at the altar, but John says he doesn't regret it. Alexander never does know what to believe._

_ Dying is not the worst part. _

_ Alexander should've let the water have him. _

_ John is eighteen, he'll always be eighteen and strikingly handsome with his hair pinned back and his grin lopsided, the definition of dangerous. The freckles twinkle on his cheeks, on his neck, on his arms, on his chest, on his thighs. Alexander's eyes hurt, but he stares anyway. _

_ Eliza comes later. She's not stars, she's not water, she's the sweetness Alexander wants in his lungs when he goes. She's older than John, but younger. She isn't his wife, why do people say she's his wife? Alexander knows that even if he weren't married to John, he couldn't keep that kind of sweetness, chain her with his  name, and present her as his own. She isn’t. He isn't. Alexander doesn't have his own anyone, not even himself sometimes. _

_ Alexander knows this part vividly. He could live a thousand lives and have a thousand loves, but he'll always remember. It's not the truth, it can't be, and yet. He can't forget. _

_ There's a couch. _

_ Eliza is on top of John, has him pressed into the worn fabric of the couch, draping him with herself, and she's kissing him so frantically, so hungrily. Alexander understands what it's like to need him like that. This is real. This happened. This is a memory. _

_ But John is as enthusiastic as Eliza. That isn't right, that isn't true, but he can't forget. John should push her away. Should say, “We should stop.” He isn't one for sweetness. He likes deep and dark; he loves Alexander. _

_ But this John loves her, kisses her back with so much passion that Alexander can feel it vibrating in the air around them. He tries to scream, but no words come out. Stop stop stop stop stop stop stop. _

_ “For you, Alex,” says a voice, and Alexander can't tell who's speaking. Maybe he's talking to himself. There's salt on his lips, though. He can't speak. _

_ Alexander knows this is his fault. He asked. He asked John if he could stand to be with Eliza. Stupid. How can he feel jealous now? _

_ Their kiss breaks. A momentary reprieve. _

_ She unbuttons his shirt and pushes it off his shoulders. Runs her palms across his bare chest. He grins, and the room lights up. Follow the stars, find the stars, love the stars, love the sweetness, inhale and exhale. _

_ They kiss again. It's fucking hot. _

_ Alexander misses the water. That, at least, was cool. No boiling to death in his own skin. No visions of his mistakes. He can almost hear the darkness taunting him for being greedy.  _

_ John rips her dress. Eliza giggles, helps him take it off properly. _

_ This is a memory, but it's wrong because John is smiling too much. Alexander isn't the victim here. He's the villain. He's paying for his crimes. He could use a glass of nothing. _

_ They fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck! John and Eliza. Eliza and John. Stars and sweetness. Wrong, so wrong. Why? Alexander doesn't want to watch, but he does, he watches them move together and listens to every sigh, every moan, every gasp. _

_ There's salt on his lips; it's from the blood. Blood is too warm. Alexander wants the water back. He wants to take it back, take it all back. _

_ Eliza lays in John's arms, looking more satisfied than Alexander could ever dream of being. They seem content. That's not what happened. Wet salt. “Better than Alex,” she murmurs. Anything’s better than Alex, Alexander wants to tell her, but the stars are burning out. _

_ “Better without Alex,” John says in some adjacent agreement. Without Alexander, this never would have happened. Where's the water? Follow the stars back to the water. They don't want that, they don't, the stars are good after all, how could John have bad in his skin? _

_ The blackness creeps in. John and Eliza blur. Alexander made a mistake. Alexander is a mistake. He hurts and he hurts and he hurts stopAlexstop wrong. _

_ Philip Hamilton. Not Laurens. Hamilton. Stars and sweetness. _

_ Alexander chokes. Dying is easy, and it tastes like salt. _

_ *** _

Alex wakes up, gasping for air. Tears stream down his face, but he doesn't move to wipe them right away. “‘M sorry,” he whispers into the inky night around him. He's exhausted, somehow, after hours of sleep.

“What’re you sorry about?” John says, words slurred with sleep. He props himself up on his elbow and blinks blearily at Alex as his eyes adjust. He isn't eighteen. Thirty-six. He wasn't even eighteen when Pip was conceived; Alex doesn't know why he always dreams of John at eighteen.

“I had a nightmare,” Alex says, feeling childish.

“About?” The way John smiles reassuringly at him, Alex doesn't deserve it.

Before Alex can respond, an arm slides around his waist, a chin rests over his shoulder, and Eliza asks, “Why’re we awake?” He doesn't deserve the warm comfort of her spooning, either.

“Alex had a nightmare,” John explains, yawning. He's still beautiful.

“Oh.”

“It- it was about Philip,” he says, and he feels more so than sees the look John and Eliza try to exchange in the dark. They know, somehow, that he's lying. Is he lying?

Eliza strokes his hair. She doesn't say anything because she knows there's nothing she can say. Alex wishes John would speak, but he doesn't. He isn't a mind reader, and for all of his verbosity, Alex doesn't know how to explain. Is he haunted? Is Eliza? For someone who writes like he's running out of time, Alex has trouble saying much of anything at all.

“Didn't mean to wake you,” Alex says eventually, to both of them.

John takes that as a sign that they're going back to sleep. He lays his head down on his pillow and takes Alex's hand. “S’okay. Love you.”

“Love you,” Eliza echoes.

“Love you,” croaks Alex. Tastes like salt. 


End file.
